Aliyah

The Hebrew word for going up or ascending, Aliyah is used to designate the various waves of Jewish immigrants to Palestine. The first are politically minded pioneers like the Rabinsky brothers, refugees from late 19th-century Eastern European persecution; few have any farming experience or aptitude. The second are a new breed, determined to redeem the Holy Land by undertaking the backbreaking job of draining the swamps, believing with A. D. Gordon that labor is dignified. The third arrive in the aftermath of World War I and a wave of new pogroms across Eastern Europe. They believe in the Balfour Declaration and replenish the Yishuv population decimated by wartime Turkish terror. The fourth Aliyah is designated "German," because it consists of the wave of intellectuals who flee Germany in the early days of Hitler's regime. The sailing of Exodus begins a Children's Aliyah, and victory in the War...